Brief thoughts

No time for anything substantive, but here are a few thoughts, in no particular order:

This ad for the Aussie Greens, made by Republic of Everyone for the ABC’s election campaign showThe Gruen Nation, is political-symbolic advertising done right. George Darroch tipped me off to it and describes it as “a political-emotional cluster bomb”, which is about right. It frames up some current issues in an explicitly normative, socially aspirational fashion by posing a set of questions which essentially answer themselves. It presents these issues — particularly gay marriage and boat people — in a way which permits cross-ideological consensus, opening the door to support from Coalition-supporting classical liberals. It’s so good the party itself wants to run the ad on TV, and I would too.

If the Climate Science Coalition wants science decided by the courts, rather than by scientists, then they’re welcome to open that door. It speaks volumes about their relationship to science; as a chap on Morning Report said this morning, neither judges nor lawyers can make this determination; if they have scientific experts who can legitimately challenge the record, let’s see them do so. But I have one proviso: They must be bound by the court’s findings. If the court rules, as I expect them to do, that there’s nothing wrong with the NIWA record, then I expect the CSC to take their lumps with good grace. But I expect instead to hear shrill shrieks about activist judges and political-ideological conspiracies. By the same token, of course, if the courts rule against NIWA then I expect the same, and will want to hear some answers from them. Science welcomes scrutiny.

KiwiRail continues to fail horribly, this time citing ‘unexpected complications’. The only thing ‘unexpected’, as far as I can tell, is that they’re advising commuiters of the problems in advance now, rather than days after the fact. Just another reason I’m thrilled to be working from home at the moment.

3 Responses to “Brief thoughts”

RedLogix on August 16th, 2010 at 22:23

Two thoughts Lew.

1. If the CCS are declared wrong by a Court they are not going to accept the result. They are not playing this game in good faith… all we will get is goal-post shifting and a fresh round of malicious libel.

2. Your dentist may well be happy to give you an opinion on a legal matter, he might even be right…but still would not hold any consequential weight in any legal forum.

Judges and lawyers (who usually have an almost non-existent science education… hell one I met couldn’t do simple fractions) are not the right people to make a call on this and it’s a total waste of time asking them to do so.

Hugh on August 17th, 2010 at 02:49

Judges and lawyers (who usually have an almost non-existent science education… hell one I met couldn’t do simple fractions) are not the right people to make a call on this and it’s a total waste of time asking them to do so.

Yea, they spend all their time studying the law instead. Ridiculous, isn’t it?

RL, to the extent that they go from looking, to the untrained eye, like folks who might have a point to the raving moonbats they are — tilting at windmills all the way to the Supreme Court and then complaining about the raw deal they’re getting, I think it could be a very worthwhile exercise.

I agree that lawyers and judges aren’t in a position to assess the scientific evidence — but that’s not what they do. They assess the experts’ arguments from the evidence, and apply their judgement and discretion. They can do that perfectly well.

Incidentally, I just love the fact that Objectivists — the sort who want the various organs of the state out of everything where it doesn’t suit them — are repairing to law rather than science here. Awesome.